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Deep Fried Interview: "Starry Eyes" Cinematographer Adam Bricker

Our amazing director of photography, Adam Bricker, sat down with Deep Fried Movies, for this awesome, in-depth walk through the look and cinematography of "Starry Eyes."

We shot Starry Eyes on both RED EPIC M-X and RED SCARLET M-X, with the EPIC resolving at 5K and the SCARLET at 4K. The movie finished 2K, so we had a surplus of resolution. That is one of the biggest advantages of the RED system. The enormous resolution enabled (directors) Dennis (Widmyer) and Kevin (Kolsch) to adjust composition, punch-in, and stabilize in post.

Our shooting schedule was insanely tight, so we felt our on-set workflow would benefit from the efficiency of zoom lenses. We were aiming to shoot the vast majority of the film handheld. With those two factors in mind, we opted for Angenieux Optimo DP zoom lenses. They’re lightweight, about 4lbs each, and are decently fast at T2.8. We carried both the 16-42mm, which lived on A-Camera, and a 30-80mm, which lived on B. I think our camera teams swapped lenses only a handful of times over the run of the show.

"Starry Eyes" is consistently focused on its heroine and her all-consuming insecurities. Widmyer and Kolsch are smart enough to know that, after a point, Sarah is responsible for her actions since she let her insecurity cloud her judgment. She is, in that sense, always presented as a monster since she's always trying to refashion herself in a way that make an asset of her poor body image. "Starry Eyes" may leave you feeling hopeless, but its bleak vision of masochistic perfectionism is clear-eyed, cogent, and devastatingly unsettling." - Simon Abrams

"Starry Eyes presents a fresh take on a recycled Hollywood journey, one that oozes passionate horror love and dramatic, psychologically-charged storytelling. You’ve seen it before, but you haven’t seen it like this"

"It’s somewhat ironic that Dennis Widmyer and Kevin Kölsch’s Starry Eyes, a film that literally singles out ambition as the blackest of human qualities, is the most ambitious film I have seen thus far at SXSW this year."

"Starry Eyes is a finely crafted horror movie and study of one woman's quest to obtain stardom at any cost or opportunity. Here, becoming a movie star is depicted as a literal transformative and transcending process."

''What price fame?'' is not an original question. But writer-directors Kevin Kolsch and Dennis Widmyer break new ground with the horrific answer they deliver. Alex Essoe plays an L.A. actress whose desperate quest for success leads her to a sinister organization. You'll have to watch this skillful combination of occult thriller and Cronenbergian gruesome-fest to find out what happens next. Horror fans should keep their eyes on the filmmakers — and Essoe, who gives a star-making performance."

"Alex Essoe gives a star-making performance with the character, running the gamut of emotions from timid actress, to empowered film star to psychotic killer to something else… All in the space of 90 minutes!"